Crispin writes to tell us about his site, which lists a couple hundred free VST plug-ins (most are Windows-only). You can add that to the growing list of places you can find free music software tools, as well as "reasons no one can argue computer music is too expensive" and "reasons no one has an excuse to pirate software."

With that many choices, I asked Crispin to tell us his top five favorites. Here’s what he came up with (in no particular order), plus a few words from me:

DSK Brass: Sample-based brass instrument, with two layers and 23 waveforms, effects, automation support, and even micro-detuning. There was a full tutorial [PDF link] in a recent issue from our friends at Computer Music magazine (UK).

(If we're just talking about instruments, FX list would be many times longer!)

Cross Platform =

U-He Triple Cheese

U-He Zebra CM (comes with computer music)

Crystal (Oldie but still great!)

Linplug Free Alpha

Remedy

Orca

Da Hornet

U-No-60

Orca

Mac Only =

Automat

Sonic Birth Modular VST creator

Win Only =

Wusik CM (comes with computer music)

I've tried like 90% of the 1000 or so synths on kvr. My personal freebee faves are U-He stuff, Crystal(patch mutation!), automat, and Wusik CM.

So 3 cross platform, one pc only, one Mac only!

http://www.proemland.com proem

tweakbench!

http://www.virb.com/bodo Bodo

For Mac users, I find http://www.studiotoolz.net/ very handy, not only VST(i) but a whole batch of fun, quirky and often useful stand-alone programs too. Highly recommended!

http://www.virb.com/bodo Bodo

Oh, forgot to mention; my personal freebie is the Sonic Birth AU creator, lots of great potential there, esp. now that it's free!

Automat as the favourite synth freebie, very nice sound & features.

http://rekkerd.org ronnie

Note about the DSK plugins. If you're going to use these plugins on multiple tracks in your project you may experience problems rendering sound from them. Don't know if this is going to be fixed any time soon…

http://una-love.com Michael Una

Hell yeah!!!!11!!!1!1!!1

I was looking for a download site hosting Syntar a while back and could not find a single one.

This is like Christmas came 5 days early.

http://keithhandy.com Keith Handy

Bodo: thanks. I was on the verge of caving in and getting a Windows box, just to be able to use more plugins like these.

i wanted to do a comprehensive guide on free music for a while but never got time. this might be the chance! i guess we have to make 3… one for cross-platform. definitely add the MDA series and te W1 limiter. indepence free is also quite new and pretty cool….